Three people, including a journalist, were killed in a shootout in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar, according to reports on Sunday.
A security source, on the condition of anonymity, told news agency Xinhua that the journalist’s name was Sayyed Marof Saadat. He was travelling with his relatives in a sedan along a road in Police district 5 of Jalalabad city on Saturday evening when gunmen, who were in a rickshaw, opened fire on them.
The source said that Saadat’s son and the driver of the sedan were injured in the shootout.
No group has claimed responsibility for Saturday’s killings till now and the Taliban are probing the case, the source also told Xinhua.
The incident comes weeks after a series of explosions that targeted Taliban vehicles in the Nangarhar province, killed three people and injured 20 others.
Since the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban last month, violence against journalists has been on the rise in the war-ravaged country. In recent days, press freedom organisations raised concerns over the ferocity against media professionals.
Last month, the Taliban on September 7 had briefly detained some journalists in the capital city of Kabul during the anti-Pakistan protests. Some media reports claimed that the equipment of the journalists was also confiscated by the Islamic Emirate.
And on the very next day, two journalists- Nematullah Naqdi and Taqi Daryabi, who work for the Etilaat Roz (Information Daily), were picked by Taliban enforces on September 8 as they were covering a women’s protest in Kabul.
{{/usCountry}}And on the very next day, two journalists- Nematullah Naqdi and Taqi Daryabi, who work for the Etilaat Roz (Information Daily), were picked by Taliban enforces on September 8 as they were covering a women’s protest in Kabul.
{{/usCountry}}The journalists said that they were accused of organising the protest and were then beaten with batons, whops and electrical cables. “One of the Taliban put his foot on my head, crushed my face against the concrete. They kicked me in the head... I thought they were going to kill me,” Nematullah Naqdi told the AFP.